Social Background

The characters in Saving Grace travel by train and landau, pictured here in 1849. A landau was drawn by a pair or four-in-hand. It was a social carriage with facing seats and a soft folding top. The shell of the landau made for maximum visibility of the occupants and their clothing, which made it the transport item of choice for the fashionable Victorian.

The Victorians liked their coffee too. An advertising poster from 1885.

In chapter two of Saving Grace, Daniel Morgan and his assistant, Mr Robeson, travel from Cardiff, west along the Great Western Railway to Grace Petrie’s mansion, Sker Grange. The construction of the Great Western Railway was overseen by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Originally built to transport iron, limestone and coal, the railways were soon ferrying passengers to the seaside, which led to the development of seaside resorts. Pictured, Bridgend railway station on the 18th June 1850, the day the GWR was declared open.